


isak og even, 3am

by slvtherxn



Category: SKAM (Norway)
Genre: 3AM, Bipolar Disorder, Fluff, Insomnia, M/M, Metaphors, Sunrises, Swimming Pools, dreamy, greek god allusions, i have no idea how to tag this, implied - Freeform, seriously way too many metaphors
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-02
Updated: 2019-09-02
Packaged: 2020-10-05 20:27:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20494826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slvtherxn/pseuds/slvtherxn
Summary: “Fucking hell,” he says, “Is this a dream, or is it real?”“All dreams are real, Isak,” Even says, already kicking off his shoes.





	isak og even, 3am

**Author's Note:**

> it's up to you whether or not isak dreamed this whole thing. let me know what you think. :)

“Isak.” 

Even’s voice is barely above a whisper, but it echoes in the silence as if he’d yelled. Isak doesn’t have to strain to hear it even the slightest. He sets his phone down next to him and rolls over in bed, where he’s now face to face with a wide-eyed, startlingly awake Even. 

“Hmmm?” He raises his eyebrows, feeling rather awake himself— though he’s not sure he looks it, his eyes drooping at the corners. “What’s up?” 

“I can’t sleep.” 

Unsurprisingly, Isak can relate to that. It’s just one of those nights; the stress from upcoming exams has flooded his brain with enough anxiety that sleep evades him no matter how fast he chases it. 

It happens sometimes. Less than it used to, but sometimes. And now that they live together, he doesn’t want to disturb Even, so most of the time he’ll just stay in bed and watch Even sleep, the soft rise and fall of his chest lulling Isak into sleepiness like the rhythmic tick of a clock. 

It isn’t surprising that Even is awake either; sometimes Even’s brain moves so fast that he can’t lay down for more than thirty seconds before restlessness overtakes him and he’s bounding from the bed again, triggering that rapid-fire, can’t-stop-moving section of his mind. It’s endlessly fascinating, how Even’s brain works. Sometimes he’ll have a random spike of artistic inspiration and spend the whole night drawing at their desk, only for Isak to smack him with a pillow in the morning and insist he gets some sleep. 

Until now, though, their nights don’t usually line up. 

“Me neither,” Isak sighs, shifting, his legs moving restlessly underneath the thick white duvet.

He’d already been though the usual strategies: snuggle Even, take deep breaths, drink disgusting tea, turn the lights and his phone off… Well, he’d turned his phone back on recently, but it was more from sheer boredom than anything else. 

Even hums. “My brain is buzzing,” he tells Isak, propping up on one elbow to get a closer look. 

The room is dark, but Isak can make out the silhouette of Even’s face, full lips and soft eyes, one strand of hair flopping over his forehead, beautiful like a young Adonis, ready to transform into a flower so Isak, his Venus, can pluck him from the earth and keep him close. 

“Every time I try to close my eyes they fly back open,” Even continues, and Isak giggles quietly at the picture that puts in his head— Even’s eyes shooting open dramatically like the beginning of a terrible movie. 

“Me too,” he agrees, “I can’t stop moving.” 

“Me too!” Even sounds amused now, shuffling closer. His voice is too loud for the dark room, startling the shadows and shattering the silence. But Isak is awake anyways, so it hardly matters. “What time is it?” 

Isak yawns, his body aching with exhaustion even when his brain hasn’t quite caught up. Reaching blindly behind him, he clicks his phone to check the time, white sheets slipping between his fingers. “Five past three.” 

Even hums thoughtfully, his voice soft and contemplative, turning simple words turned to poetry. “Isak and Even, three in the morning,” he muses, “Come on.” 

In one swift, graceful movement, Even has clicked the lamp on, thrown the duvet back and slid out of bed. His socked feet slip on their floor, arms stretched above his head like an ice dancer. The shirt he’s wearing is Isak’s, and it rides up as he moves, exposing a strip of moonlight pale skin. 

Isak, not quite so fast, sits up and swings his legs over the side of the bed, placing his feet firmly on the floor before he stands. “What are we doing?” He asks. 

“Going for a walk.” Even shrugs, picking a grey hoodie off the floor and tossing it towards Isak, who extends one hand and catches it, despite his sleepsoft and slow reflexes. 

“Isn’t that just going to keep us awake?” Isak raises his eyebrows, but he pulls the hoodie over his head anyways, already committed to following Even wherever he goes.

“Are you going to be able to sleep if we stay here?” Even asks, which,  _ fair enough.  _ He grabs a thick pullover sweater and tugs it on. “Besides, fresh air! It might clear your head a bit.” 

Isak shrugs. He can’t find a reason to disagree, not when Even’s eyes shine at him in the narrowly lit room. “Okay,” he agrees. 

“Okay,” Even repeats. He grabs Isak’s hand, and walks him right out the door. 

In the streets, Oslo is quieter than he has ever seen it. He feels a bit disorientated; it’s very late and the usually bustling streets have succumbed to silence, only lit by a few streetlights and the headlights of a rare car. For miles, all he can see is dark, lifeless city streets, and Even’s warm, bright smile to contrast them. It’s cold too, biting at his skin even with the hoodie he’s wearing. 

“Where are we going?” He asks, tilting his chin up to look at Even. Even’s cheeks and nose are already tinted pink from the cold, but he smiles happily. 

“Isn’t it crazy?” Even says, instead of answering, gesturing one-handedly to the streets around them. “It feels like we’re the only two people in this whole city. Do you know what I mean?” 

Isak laughs. He starts to disagree, but tears his eyes away from Even long enough to really look around. 

From where he stands, trees fade into the dark skyline, the mountains shadowed by the stars. His hand tangles with Even’s, loose and numb as if it wasn’t his own. With the sun down and no one around, the city has transformed into an incomplete dreamscape, like an abstract painting of the world he knows— an amnesia land, a kind of skewed perception where old, familiar landmarks are recognizable but spaced too far apart, disarranged, made disorientating by the emptiness around them. 

“Yeah,” he agrees, his voice softer and more contemplative than Even’s. “It’s tripping me out, kind of.” 

Even raises his eyebrows once at Isak, a challenging flick. “Are you scared?” 

Isak rolls his eyes. “Scared?” 

“Yeah. Scared of being the only people here.” Even uses their intertwined hands to pull Isak in close, to bring him back to himself and press a kiss right on his mouth. 

“No,” Isak mumbles, even more dazed and disoriented with Even kissing him, the dark city and sky full of stars and Even’s smiling face growing fuzzy and dreamlike around the edges of his blurry vision. “I’m not scared. Nothing scares me.” 

“Nothing?” Even grins. “Okay. Come on, then.”

Part of Isak isn’t sure why he’s agreed to this: Even often has terrible ideas of what is appropriate to do in the middle of the night. But he was bound to be awake, and he might as well tag along— being awake isn’t so bad if he’s with Even. 

In a more selfish way, it makes him feel better that he knows what Even is up to. 

He stumbles a bit as Even tugs him along, his feet too slow for his legs, having to walk quickly to keep up with Even’s elegantly long strides. Though he’s not sure where they’re going, he’s starting to care less and less, trees and sidewalks and streetlights blurring as they fly past them like a solitary car on a long stretch of highway. He tilts his head and looks up at the stars, growing dizzy with the strange perspective, head spinning as if he’s sipped from the glass of Dionysus.

Even suddenly stops and Isak nearly tumbled into him. 

“I feel like swimming. Don’t you?” Even asks, and Isak blinks hard three times to make sure he’s not dreaming. 

Deja vu washes over him like a thin blanket; he could have dreamt this, really, because Oslo is never this quiet, never this lonesome, and he’s heard Even say these same words before— once in real life, several times in his dreams. 

“Um, what?” He says instead, too sleep deprived to even try and be eloquent. 

Even laughs, bright and happy and bouncing through the air like wind chimes. “Come on.” He tugs Isak forward by the hand again. “I know a place.” 

“A place that’s open at…” Isak reaches in his hoodie pockets for his phone to check the time, but finds nothing but soft fuzz. He must’ve left his phone back at the apartment. “Really early in the morning?” 

Even raises his eyebrows again. “Do you trust me?”

Isak looks at Even for a moment, judging his expression, and then sighs heavily, eyes rolling. “ _ Yes.  _ Whatever.” 

He follows along, slightly behind Even, letting himself be taken down the street: past buildings, coffee shops, bookstores and markets, previously recognizable names blurred and unintelligible in the dark night, in his fuzzy mind and unstable vision. It takes them longer than the first time, but Isak immediately recognizes where they are once they’re standing outside of the stark white house. 

“Even,” he hisses, his own voice weird to his ears, “I thought we decided we were done with breaking and entering?” 

Even waves a hand at him, his hand following from Isak’s to unlock the window, fumbling with the metal. “They’re on holiday, they won’t care.” 

Isak huffs out a laugh, disbelief running circles in his mind. “How do you know they’re on holiday?” 

Even unlatches the window and swings it open. “Do you trust me?” He repeats. 

Isak waves his hands hopelessly at Even, trying to display what he can’t say. “Yes, but…” He trails off, shaking his head side to side, his thoughts sloshing around inside of it. “I’m not too keen on getting caught.”

Even laughs, as if the idea of getting caught is just a joke. “We won’t,” he says, his voice unsurprisingly reassuring, “It’ll be fine. No one’s awake at this hour.” 

“ _ We’re  _ awake,” Isak points out. 

“We’re different,” Even disagrees. “No one  _ else  _ is awake.” 

It’s faulty logic, but Even has always been persuasive, so Isak slides through the window, the  _ slap  _ of his shoes on the floor echoing throughout the room. His eyes take more than a minute to adjust to the bright white lights, squinting as they burn— for a moment, all he can see is Even, the scene around him a blur of hazy white. Even, in the center of it all, looks like an angel, hazy around the edges, surrounded by pure white bliss. Isak’s breath catches quietly in his throat. 

He rubs his eyes and they adjust, the disorientating deja vu back in full force once he can make out the rest of their current location. He feels a bit more awake with the sight of it, the lights too bright and his heart thumping too loudly to be tired. 

“Fucking hell,” he says, “Is this a dream, or is it real?” 

“All dreams are real, Isak,” Even says, already kicking off his shoes. 

Isak blinks three more times. 

“Have you gotten any better at holding your breath?” Even asks, grinning. 

“Fuck you, I’m better than you,” Isak laughs, the response natural and instinctive— he doesn’t have to think for a second. 

Even raises his eyebrows and pulls his sweater over his head, kicking it and his sweatpants into the corner of the room. “Show me, then.” 

Isak rolls his eyes, folding his clothes nicely as he strips out of them. He pauses for a second, takes in the bright, happy, almost childlike expression on Even’s face, and then immediately pushes him in the pool. 

Before he can let go of Even, Even yanks him down too and he’s plummeted head first into freezing water, the chill running through his whole body. 

Sputtering and coughing to the surface, Isak is immediately face to face with Even, whose head is tossed back towards the sky in laughter, eyes closed— the perfect picture of charismatic happiness. 

“Asshole,” Isak grins once he’s caught his breath, shoving Even playfully. 

“You pushed me first!” Even argues back, flicking water at Isak. 

“Hey!” Isak splashes him full force, bouncing on his feet like an astronaut on the moon, treading above the water. “Don’t splash me!” 

Even breaks into laughter, splashing Isak again, his smile so bright that Isak, like a child who hasn’t learned to not look at the sun, feels like he has to look away. However, like the sun, anywhere he looks, he can still see it. 

“Don’t splash back, then,” Even counters. 

“Don’t splash back,” Isak mocks, sending a wave of water directly in Even’s face.

“Are you mocking me?” Even twists his expression into face surprise, “I didn’t realize you were five years old.” 

Instead of a response, Isak uses both hands and splashes as much water at Even as he can, which doesn’t really help him prove he’s not a five year old. 

Even laughs, wipes the water off his face, and quickly surges forward to cup Isak’s cheeks and kiss him hard on the mouth. 

Water drips into Isak’s eyes, but he hardly notices over the warmth swelling in his chest from having Even’s lips on his own. His hand bursts from underwater to wrap around Even’s neck, holding tight to a fistful of wet hair. 

Even pulls back for a brief, but irritating second. “Are you feeling the same deja vu that I am?” 

“ _ Yes _ ,” Isak breathes, “Shut up and kiss me.” 

He doesn’t know how long they’re kissing in the pool— time seems to stand still, but it’s long enough for Isak to be panting and breathless— but eventually Even is smiling too much, and it’s getting harder to kiss him. When they part, Isak shivers, the cold from the water finally catching up to him. 

“Cold?” Even asks. 

“A little,” Isak admits, shrugging, “Are you? 

“Nope,” Even disagrees, though Isak is halfway sure he’s lying. “Come here, I’ll keep you warm.” He pulls Isak right into his arms, Isak’s nose pressing into his shoulder. 

Isak’s giggles, nudging his cold nose against Even’s equally cold neck. “You’re soaking wet. You’re no warmer than I am.”

“Shit,” Even agrees, “You’re right. Good thing our clothes are dry, right?” 

“Are they?” Isak asks, skeptical, recalling the large amounts of splashing that had conspired between them. 

Even stretches up to look over the side of the pool, arms still wound around Isak’s back. “They look dry to me.” 

Isak rolls his eyes at Even’s faulty logic, but presses a small kiss to his neck anyways. “Should we go before someone catches us?” 

“I don’t think anyone’s awake yet,” Even response, but he lets go of Isak long enough to swim to the edge of the pool, effortlessly pulling himself over the edge. “What time is it?” 

“I don’t know. I didn’t bring my phone.” Isak climbs out after Even, his clumsy feet slipping on the wet floor. “Did you?” 

Even shakes his head. He tilts it, and smiles at Isak. “No phones,” he says, “It really is like we’re alone in the city, then.” 

Isak lets his eyes linger on Even for a moment, wet hair  _ drip drop dripping  _ on the floor like a leaky faucet. Even changes back into his clothes without even trying to dry off, shaking his wet hair out. 

Isak at least squeezes the water from his boxers, changing back once he’s satisfied with being slightly dry. Even helps him out the window, his brief moment of clarity shattering once his feet hit solid ground. 

The cold morning air sends a chill through his spine. It’s still dark, but early dawn is beginning to rise— a glint of brightness on a barely there world, painted in shades of brown and pink and yellow. The streets are empty, no bikers in the bike lanes or cars in the road, no sounds of life except Even’s footsteps in rhythm with his own. 

“Hey, look,” Even points west, “The sun’s coming up! We should watch it.” 

“Okay,” Isak yawns, his limbs starting to grow heavier, tired now that he isn’t anxious, or swimming or kissing or yelling. Or maybe Even is right, and the fresh air has cleared his brain— though he’s tempted to argue that it’s done the opposite, and disorientated him more than anything, sent him from stress to confusion. Blissful confusion, but fuzzy, dizzying confusion all the same. 

Even reaches back and intertwined their hands, tugging Isak along so he’s forced to walk faster. The empty street and early morning lights bounce off Even’s skin, each freckle a little patch of light. 

“What would you do if we really were the last two people here?” Even asks, both expected and unexpected. “Would you be scared?” 

Isak shakes his head; he doesn’t have to think twice. “No,” he responds, “I’d be okay if it was just me and you.” 

Even’s smile blinds him more than the sun ever could. 

Isak’s feet shuffle along, dragging steps slowly becoming unsynchronized with Even’s long, graceful strides. They make it to the bench before the sun comes up, and while Even takes a moment to look around, Isak steps forward and immediately slumps down onto it, tired limbs happy to be obliged. His eyes falling shut, he’s met a moment later with Even’s arm around his shoulders and a soft kiss to the side of his head. 

“It’s pretty, right?” Even asks. 

Isak opens his eyes. He’s right. It is pretty. 

The rising sun casts a soft pink glow around them, tinting his world in a different, softer hue. It reflects off Even’s dirty blonde hair, giving him a halo, an ethereal glow as if he’s a person in an impressionistic painting or a wordless picture book instead of real life, too beautiful and angelic to be real. Isak feels a bit as if he really could be dreaming, as if this whole night is meant to be a fantasy, everything just slightly too blurry and obscure to feel like real life. He’s not sure if his imagination is good enough, though, or if his dreams would ever be this beautiful. 

He slumps quietly against Even’s side, head falling down on Even’s shoulder. Turning his head, he muffles a yawn in the fabric of Even’s sweater. 

“Tired?” Even murmurs, his voice soft and his lips pressed to Isak’s blonde curls. 

Isak nods, letting his eyes fall shut a second time. “Are you?” 

Even’s fingers tap in an uneven rhythm on the bench, counts of four. “Not yet,” he whispers. 

Too tired to worry about it, Isak hums, low and soft in response. As the sun rises, it warms his skin to match the warmth of his chest, wrapping around him like a heated blanket. It peeks through his closed eyes, tinting his eyelids shades of yellow and orange, but even this isn’t enough to keep him from drifting to sleep, tucking against Even’s side. 


End file.
